The Dogs reclaimed fourth spot with the win just four days after Akermanis was told to leave Whitten Oval and not return.
Eade said the way his players were able to block out the distraction of the past week and play as well as they did was an indication of their focus.
“If you can’t handle it, you fall away. It showed the strength of the group and probably the strength of the mentality of the group, too,” he said.
“They’ve got strong character. They’re here to win games and challenge for the premiership.”
Eade is confident his group will hold that focus across the rest of the season even if Akermanis continues to draw attention to himself outside the club.
“What people say outside shouldn’t affect the way you go about it,” he said.
“That’s not an issue. Our last five weeks now have been very good - we’ve been building momentum and the players have some confidence and positivity around that.
“That’s what we’re looking for. We’re probably not going to play as well as we did today; we probably won’t play like that again.
“There’s some tough games ahead, starting with next week, and we know the Kangaroos are tough opponents.
"We need to turn up each week and hopefully we can build again.”
Eade said Akermanis was not discussed in pre-match preparations or used as motivation.
He was also unperturbed about the amount of support the fallen Brownlow medallist appeared to attract after the Wednesday announcement.
“It’s neither here nor there. Whether people support it [or] don’t agree with the decision. It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“We’ve made the decision. That’s it. It’s gone. It’s finished.
“We’ve moved on. It’s done. There’s no good talking about it. We’re looking ahead, end of story.”
The win puts the Bulldogs ahead of Fremantle on percentage and with a good chance of holding on to the all-important double chance in the finals.
“[The top four] is in our control now. We don’t rely on other teams winning or losing,” Eade said.
“It’s really up to us. We’re certainly under no illusions; we’ve got a solid draw and there are good teams just below us.”
The entire club was invited into the winning circle post-match, which Eade said showed everyone was “united”.
“Everyone is on the same page, which is good.”
